How did I do with my 2017 goals?

It's been a crazy year! As you can see, we had a few huge wins, and then there were other areas (cough: weight loss) that took a back seat to my other priorities.

1) Financial - Figure out our housing situation, and get it all resolved (i.e. moved, job changes as needed) before school starts. - Bought a house, moved, & sold our other house!

• Decide what to do with our Seattle house. Contingent upon location.  - SOLD!
• Move! - DONE!
• Build/follow a 2017 "interim budget" (until I leave my job) & a 2017 "post-job budget", after. - Not applicable, given I stayed.
• Inventory & track our various stockpiles, so we reduce waste & minimize what we need to move. - Done, and greatly reduced what we needed to move. 
• Every month, come up with a new way to reduce what we need on an ongoing basis. - I did okay on this one. Bought reusable ziplocks, tried to reduce driving errands, etc. We still have more work we can do here. 

2) Family - Spend more time together as a family! - We mostly accomplished this, but had weeks that were better than others. The date night thing didn't happen consistently, but M & I had two vacations together, so I'll consider that a huge win instead.

• Do a minimum of one fun activity/month with the kids. This can be family puzzle night, cooking dinner together, board games, going out somewhere, etc. - we do a better job with this in the winter, when it's darker outside. 
• Be more present with the kids & M - play games, minimize computer time, exercise together, etc. - We did pretty well. 
• Have two dates with M per month (one lunch, one evening)  - nope, but we did have two vacations, which more than equals out!

3) Fitness/health - Lose 20 pounds, bringing my weight to 133. This may sound familiar, as it's also a carryover goal from last year! - Major fail on the weight side. 2018 is going to need an entirely different plan. I'm actually running 2 pounds over my weight from last year. Sigh. 

• Make running a consistent part of my life. Build & follow a training plan. - No. 
• Eat five servings of fruit & vegetables (combined) per day - averaged closer to 3, which is a fail. 
• Complete 10,000 minutes of cardio - I'm currently at 10,160 for the year, and plan to get in a walk today. 
• Complete 50 strength workouts. - finished with 86. Crushed this earlier in the year, and then got off track. Had I stuck with that focus on HIIT workouts, I think I would have sorted most of my overall weight loss.
• Complete 50 stretching workouts. Make yoga a consistent part of my life. - finished with 36, so still need to work on this. 

4) Work/career - Improve my work life balance. - I've done an okay job with this. But, international travel just really eliminates any balance the week of, plus the next 5 or so days for me. That's a lot of time out of my life. 

• Keep better perspective at work/reduce stress (until I leave) - did okay. Focused on working from home on Fridays, and trying to reduce my hours. 
• Determine an end date for my job. - Yes, but the date got shifted to 2018.
• Take time off from my job. - Nope. Delayed as we bought a house.

5) Personal/creative - Spend more time on myself/creative pursuits. - I've done okay with this one as well. No real new skill, but I did bake more, spend time with friends (hiking), & volunteered throughout the last school year. However, technology has replaced my old volunteer job ;-), so I need to find something new in 2018. 

• Learn a new skill. I'm thinking of learning a new language, but would be fine with anything: sewing, knitting, expanding my baking, etc.- I'd like to make yogurt!
• Make time for my friends. Do something social at least once per month. - I love this goal, and want to continue it in 2018. 
• Volunteer a minimum of 1x/month.

All in all, work & the move/house stuff dominated 2017, so it shouldn't be a big surprise that I did "okay" on the other goals. I'm hoping that 2018 will bring more house stability, enabling me to focus more on my health & solve my work situation.

I love setting goals, measuring progress, & this time of year in general! I had a bunch of posts planned, but have bronchitis & haven't been feeling great. Here's hoping 2018 brings all of us the time & ability to focus on achieving our most ambitious goals!